Reviews and Comments

This companion book for the series (1 and 2, with hints of series 3) is thoroughly cool, laid out in a retro style throughout. Contains behind-the-scenes, character information - though series one is more complete than series 2. Highly recommended for fans of the series.

My favorite part is the AD&D-style character sheets for the 4 main characters. Character presentation for the other characters are also cool - either yearbook or Hawkins lab reports. A section for songs used on the show looks like a Columbia House record/tape club ad. Scattered in here are six phrases of Morse code - could these be episode titles for series 3?

My only (minor) quibble are the footnotes, which contain too much information (for me) and aren't well written. After the first chapter, I ended up skipping almost all of them.

This book is one of the best companion books I've seen, for any show or movie. If you are at all a fan, you will need to check this out.

Investigation of the ideal universe of math, as opposed to the real world of discrete surfaces and discontinuities. Digs into patterns and describes the beauty of ideal mathematics, connecting concepts with curiosity. The author describes the book as personal, and I agree.

Like reality, though, it wasn't perfect. Bold sentences interrupt the text, describing what the author sees as "problems and questions that occur to me." These were occasionally interesting but nearly always jarring, breaking the narrative. Sections (chapters?) were quite short, I think it would have been better to collect these bold questions at the end of each. I ended up just skipping them, perhaps missing something of interest, but definitely finishing the book.

Other minor quibbles include a skipped step in the proof of Heron's formula and a bit of glossing over sine and cosine (and no mention of how they are related to tangents!). It's a good book, worthy of 3½ stars - and I really need to read the authors most important work, A Mathematician's Lament.

This is a dense book that took me most of November to read. That said, it's quite interesting, delving deeply into biology back to the most likely origins of complex life on this planet.

Each cell in your body contains two distinct sets of DNA - one belongs to the mitochondria. This book examines both sets, how that came to be, what they are used for, and how the cell works at a fundamental level. The author also investigates defect handling, cell death, and gender development in humans and other species of plants and animals. The book starts with delving back to the last universal common ancestor of eukaryotes, archaea and bacteria.

Perhaps the most interesting part to me was investigating how energy is utilized in cells. Cell respiratory action transfers electrons down chains of molecules and pumps protons (your body pumps 10^21 protons per second!) across membranes evolved from (and quite similar to) the alkaline hydrothermal vents where life most likely started.

In summary, quite interesting. My last biology was a single class in college, but the text was quite accessible and filled with helpful diagrams. A very good index, glossary, and extensive bibliography complement the text.

Read on the plane from Seattle to London, this book was hard to put down. Two story lines alternate chapters, neither directly covering the third - a complete blackout of communications across the globe. At times suspenseful, more often introspective.

The two plots involve an elderly scientist who declines to leave when an arctic research station is evacuated and the 6 person crew of a two year space mission returning to earth. Neither knows exactly what happened to cause a blackout of planet-wide communication, causing both to speculate. This is an examination of the way the two protagonists deal with profound loneliness. Their back stories and personalities are revealed through introspection.

Good Morning, Midnight is the first novel by Lily Brooks-Dalton, and while apocalyptic, is not particularly dystopian. Included in the back are questions for a book club discussion. Other reviewers have speculated on a connection with the Jean Rhys novel of the same title, and it is possible, with a character from the backstory named Jean. This is a solid 4 star novel.

In ten years on Goodreads I've read 43 collections or anthologies, and this one is hands-down the best. It is all the more notable for being her first published collection of stories, and not even a "best of" anthology. Recommended!

Each story has a very brief intro by the author, giving the circumstances or where the story idea came from. The tales vary in length from a few pages to just over thirty. A final page gives their original published location, many in Omni - one of my favorite magazines early on. The plots are usually tightly woven and the characters solid and believable, an even mix of male and female perspectives.

Her work is often described as cyberpunk, but that's mostly the gritty feel and timing of her novels. This collection contains plenty that range far from that label, including vampires, ghosts, aliens, and ordinary runners. Well, maybe not so ordinary - but read it to find out what I mean.

I can't see why this author hasn't received more awards, but I regret to say I've never read one of her novels. I look forward to correcting that in the new year.

Narrative exposition is the insertion of important background information within a story. This story (an authorized by the Wells estate sequel to The Time Machine) is nearly all exposition, and much the worse for it. If you haven't read the original, do so - but skip this.

Yes, there is some action in this story, or rather should I say stories. Contained in this long volume are several stories strung together into one narrative. None of the brevity of the original. Herein you may find:

- Enemy Mine, where the Morlock is more civilized than the Human
- Robinson Crusoe, stranded this time in the Paleocene (with the Morlock as Friday?)
- The Prisoner, striving to break free from one prison and falling into another
- a far future run by nanobots (and yet another prison)
- Back to the Future, where interference changes the future, wait no, is required for the future

All with suitable exposition on Dyson sphere's, survival, and quantum mechanics.

There are three theories of time travel where the past is involved, and Wells never chose which one belonged to his story (set in the far future). Baxter seems to have decided to use all three, which makes life that much more confusing for the reader - nothing a little more exposition can't fix!

When I started writing this review, I was thinking 2 stars - but I seem to have talked myself into a lower rating. Sorry Stephen, this book just wasn't for me, and I can't recommend it.

This slim history focuses on one event during world war II - the British raid on Sark (one of the channel islands occupied by Germany). The author also covers the reasons and results for both sides, including Hitler's infamous Commando Order. Unfortunately, the book is a bit muddled.

The table of contents provides a nice outline for the story, and the chapters are fairly short. Many wander a bit from their target, introducing items from later in the story or repeating items from earlier. It feels as if the chapters were written individually, perhaps out of order. This lends the book a muddled feel. I didn't read it in one sitting, and often I felt like the bookmark had been moved. Likely a good editor would help this quite a bit.

The author has done quite a bit of research, and states at the beginning that while other books covered all of the channel islands, none covered Sark or this particular raid very well. He then connects this raid to the Commando Order which was issued just two weeks afterwards, and this case is compelling. There is a small photo section towards the back of the book which is also nice - but the one thing this book needs most is a good map!

The book was released shortly before the 75th anniversary of the raid (October 2017) and was perhaps rushed. An accompanying website has a bit more information, but still no map. 2½ stars.